Lessons broadcast online could help colleges to cope with the dearth of maths teachers and allow them to better serve learners in the post-area review landscape, according to one leading principal.
Heather MacDonald, interim principal at Loughborough College, told TES that expert teachers could deliver lessons online to a number of colleges as a solution to the “shortage of skilful maths teachers”.
The proposal comes as colleges across England are struggling to cope with a surge in college students taking GCSE English and maths, as a result of the requirement for each learner who failed to gain at least a C grade to retake the qualification.
Principals have been forced to cancel classes and hire additional buildings to cope with the exam resits, while the rise in students taking the subjects has created additional demand for appropriately qualified teachers.
“I’m guilty [of] bemoaning the shortage of skilful maths teachers, but we can beam leading maths educators into our classrooms,” the former principal of Sheffield and Wakefield colleges told TES at the Jisc Digifest in Birmingham earlier this month.
“So we need to look at more digital solutions to some of the problems we face. You will have skilful teachers, experienced teachers, but maybe quite a distance from another campus. It doesn’t have to be about travel.” Such an approach would mean that campuses could be reduced in size after the area reviews, she added. “You can have digitally enabled spaces post area review, if you’re brave, if you’re ambitious,” Ms MacDonald said.
‘Interaction is key’
The proposal was welcomed by skills minister Nick Boles, who told TES that he was “very keen” to see colleges exploring video lessons as a way to address the teacher shortage.
“I think the question one always asks about distance learning and online learning is whether you find a way to get interaction with students, because it probably doesn’t work that well if the student is just sitting there watching a screen,” he said.
“But if there is a clever way of using the technology to involve the student and get interaction, then I think it could well have potential. In a sense, the most important thing is that colleges and groups of colleges in different areas with different challenges should feel absolutely empowered to try out all sorts of new methods and approaches.”
A 2014 report by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) found that more than one in six maths teachers in the FE sector did not have a good GCSE pass in the subject, while almost half of them “lacked confidence” in teaching the subject.
Another report by the ETF, published last year, showed that the shortage went beyond colleges: 16 per cent of workplace learning providers found it very difficult to recruit teachers in maths in 2013-14, while 12 per cent struggled to recruit English teachers.
An ETF spokesman said that recruiting high quality English and maths teachers remained a challenge for the sector, and that the foundation had provided training in English and maths for thousands of teachers.
Jonathan Simons, head of education at the Policy Exchange thinktank, said that the FE sector faced the twin challenge of catering for tens of thousands of students taking GCSE resits, alongside coping with a shortage of English and maths teachers.
“Taking those things together, a technology-driven solution, particularly for the English and maths top-up, would be an exciting and worthwhile area for further development,” he said.
But University and College Union general secretary Sally Hunt said that technology should not replace face-to-face learning. “Technology can play a powerful part in learning in our colleges but it is important for the educational and pastoral needs of learners that they have face-to-face access to teaching staff,” she said. “Technology should be used to supplement the teachers’ role, not replace it.”
Last month, Skills Funding Agency chief executive Peter Lauener said that colleges could be allowed to keep the proceeds from campus sell-offs in order to invest in learning technology. He told TES that the SFA would consider forgoing the revenue owed from such property sales to support colleges that were “thinking creatively” about rationalising their assets.
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Videos ‘can reach thousands’
Highbury College in Portsmouth has developed an extensive library of short videos on maths to create a digital maths academy.
Cathy Ellis, director of research and development, says: “What we set out to do was to expand the reach of our good teachers and have them develop a bank of online modules.”
Their videos could reach thousands of students, she adds. “We are not talking about high-end video production requiring specialist production skills; this is not sustainable and the research from Moocs [massive open online courses] confirms it is not necessary. Some of the apps to create our videos and assessments cost about $3 (£2.08).”
With maths being compulsory for many students, short videos, coupled with assessment activities produced by teachers, have been a great success, Ms Ellis explains. “Students can use the academy to refresh and to go over topics in their own time,” she adds.
This is an article from the 25 March edition of TES. This week’s TES magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here
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